Okay, I just watched what has to be one of the worst films EVER MADE. MST3K seriously missed the boat on doing this one.
Those of us in the killer whale circles have no doubt heard of a movie called "Keiko En Peligro," a Mexican movie from the late 80s. Well, Netflix had it, and luckily it had English subtitles, so I gave it a go...
The plot: alien humans from outer space (who are apparently from the Evil Twin Universe, because they're exact doubles of humans on Earth) brought Keiko to Earth years ago, but now they're returning to get him and bring him back to their planet so that he can teach the bajillions of calves he sired how to be orcas.
First off, the whole first 45 minutes plays like an ad for Reino Aventura. A family (and the Random Family They Picked Up On The Side Of The Road) heads out to Reino Aventura for the day. They literally go from ride to ride and show the kids on all the rides. Damn, they has some cool rides, like a ferris wheel whose cars spun like the Teacups at Disneyland. The Sun Wheel's got nothing on that one, baby! But I digress. There's also the Demon Walrus Costume Character that keeps popping up, along with the Slightly-Retarded Dolphin Costume Character. I'll be sleeping with the lights on tonight, thank you. Then the kids go see Keiko's show. Of course, there's problems at the show, and Keiko doesn't want to perform, and in a scene that almost mirrors one from Free Willy (although this was made a few years before), everyone in the stadium claps and chants "Keiko! Keiko! Keiko!" Until Keiko and his two bottlenose dolphin tankmates finally perform.
Meanwhile, the Alien Kid sekritly beams off his family's Starfish Space Ship into Reino Aventura so that he can explore Earth. He ends up switching places with his Earth twin, so they can see each others lives. It's like The Parent Trap, but with aliens and without romance or Haley Mills' obnoxious singing. His dad eventually comes after him, but none of the parkgoers seem to notice or care that there's an alien in a lizard-wannabe suit walking around the park. Alien Kid also seems totally oblivious to Skanky Eight-Year-Old Girl hitting on him all day long.
Skipping lots of stuff, the kids end up running around Reino Aventura at night and playing hide and seek. Alien Kid is apparently a moron, because he counts to ten twice. But I give him the benefit of the doubt, as it is his first time playing hide and seek, and it is a horribly complicated game. Unfortunately, they all have bad hiding places as Alien Kid finds them right away with his telepathic powers, leading one seven-year-old kid to shout "Holy shit! Get down!" I know kids are developing colorful language early these days, but that came from the mouth of a kid who'd been crying about his broken toy car ten minutes ago. Anyways, Skanky Eight-Year-Old Girl ends up hiding in a pump area of Keiko's tank, and becomes trapped as the water is rising. But I'll leave you in suspense as to how it ends. I admit the last half hour was actually semi-suspenseful, believe it or not.
One character, Clodoveo, definitely weirded me out. He was amanwhore lazy theme park worker that apparently lived at the park 24 hours a day and slept on the roller coaster comic relief character that took the term "cheeseball" to new heights. I really don't think there was ANY point to having him in the movie. All he did in the end was alert the boss that there was trouble.
The music left me wanting to chop my ears off. There was one really bad music theme that they kept using that sounds like the worst of the crap that they blare out along the pathways at SeaWorld. As for sound effects, I think this is how the conversation went:
Producer: We're running out of money for SFX. We spent it all on this elevator music. What can you do on a limited budget?
SFX Guys: Well, we can't record anything new. But I think we can rip off the sound of the humpback whale probe from Star Trek IV.
Producer: Great! What about regular whale sounds?
SFX Guys: Maybe we can record a few killer whale sounds incidentally, but mostly we'll just stick in Roger Payne's famous humpback whale recordings and hope no one notices.
Producer: Perfect! Send me what you've got by tomorrow.
Yeah. Like that, but all in Spanish.
The subtitles were... interesting. At times I felt like I was reading Engrish. I saw orca spelled "orka," "orca," and "Orca." Often all within the same scene. Keiko was referred to as a girl at first, which amused me. I figured it was just a story decision for one reason or another, since most people can't tell the difference between male and female orcas just by looking at them. But ten minutes later, he was referred to as a "he." And then he was back to "she"... and then back to "he" within the same sentence. Keiko apparently has some big gender issues. I can kinda give them the benefit of the doubt there because I speak virtually no Spanish (aside from "permanecer sentados, por favor" and "por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas") so I don't know if they were using a pronoun that was not specific to gender... but you'd think they'd at least be consistent in the translation. But you'd be wrong. They later said that Keiko was a father to lots of calves, so apparently they meant male, and apparently their translator suffered from short-term memory loss.
I'm not going to touch their Spectacular Special Effects with a ten-foot pole. :P
For a movie about Keiko, he certainly doesn't do much. He kinda sits in the tank and looks pretty while everything goes on around him. In fact, I think the most he ever actively participates in the plot is doing the show. However, I am not one to complain about watching footage of Keiko. He was Teh Pretty.
And of course, the movie doesn't miss a chance to berate us for our polluting tendencies. It's a nice thought, but it comes off as cheesy. The aliens get all condescending on the Earthlings for junking up the planet, and threaten to take Keiko away if we screw it up anymore. The best part, though, is Alien Kid "feeding" trash around the park into the tiki-themed garbage cans and telling it "bon apetite!" Repeatedly.
I may later go through and do a play-by-play on this one, because I totally had a![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
zeropointsnark-like commentary going on as I watched. Long story short: Keiko En Peligro is fun... if you want a movie that you can TOTALLY MSTie.
"...but Disneyland didn't have KEIKO!"
Those of us in the killer whale circles have no doubt heard of a movie called "Keiko En Peligro," a Mexican movie from the late 80s. Well, Netflix had it, and luckily it had English subtitles, so I gave it a go...
The plot: alien humans from outer space (who are apparently from the Evil Twin Universe, because they're exact doubles of humans on Earth) brought Keiko to Earth years ago, but now they're returning to get him and bring him back to their planet so that he can teach the bajillions of calves he sired how to be orcas.
First off, the whole first 45 minutes plays like an ad for Reino Aventura. A family (and the Random Family They Picked Up On The Side Of The Road) heads out to Reino Aventura for the day. They literally go from ride to ride and show the kids on all the rides. Damn, they has some cool rides, like a ferris wheel whose cars spun like the Teacups at Disneyland. The Sun Wheel's got nothing on that one, baby! But I digress. There's also the Demon Walrus Costume Character that keeps popping up, along with the Slightly-Retarded Dolphin Costume Character. I'll be sleeping with the lights on tonight, thank you. Then the kids go see Keiko's show. Of course, there's problems at the show, and Keiko doesn't want to perform, and in a scene that almost mirrors one from Free Willy (although this was made a few years before), everyone in the stadium claps and chants "Keiko! Keiko! Keiko!" Until Keiko and his two bottlenose dolphin tankmates finally perform.
Meanwhile, the Alien Kid sekritly beams off his family's Starfish Space Ship into Reino Aventura so that he can explore Earth. He ends up switching places with his Earth twin, so they can see each others lives. It's like The Parent Trap, but with aliens and without romance or Haley Mills' obnoxious singing. His dad eventually comes after him, but none of the parkgoers seem to notice or care that there's an alien in a lizard-wannabe suit walking around the park. Alien Kid also seems totally oblivious to Skanky Eight-Year-Old Girl hitting on him all day long.
Skipping lots of stuff, the kids end up running around Reino Aventura at night and playing hide and seek. Alien Kid is apparently a moron, because he counts to ten twice. But I give him the benefit of the doubt, as it is his first time playing hide and seek, and it is a horribly complicated game. Unfortunately, they all have bad hiding places as Alien Kid finds them right away with his telepathic powers, leading one seven-year-old kid to shout "Holy shit! Get down!" I know kids are developing colorful language early these days, but that came from the mouth of a kid who'd been crying about his broken toy car ten minutes ago. Anyways, Skanky Eight-Year-Old Girl ends up hiding in a pump area of Keiko's tank, and becomes trapped as the water is rising. But I'll leave you in suspense as to how it ends. I admit the last half hour was actually semi-suspenseful, believe it or not.
One character, Clodoveo, definitely weirded me out. He was a
The music left me wanting to chop my ears off. There was one really bad music theme that they kept using that sounds like the worst of the crap that they blare out along the pathways at SeaWorld. As for sound effects, I think this is how the conversation went:
Producer: We're running out of money for SFX. We spent it all on this elevator music. What can you do on a limited budget?
SFX Guys: Well, we can't record anything new. But I think we can rip off the sound of the humpback whale probe from Star Trek IV.
Producer: Great! What about regular whale sounds?
SFX Guys: Maybe we can record a few killer whale sounds incidentally, but mostly we'll just stick in Roger Payne's famous humpback whale recordings and hope no one notices.
Producer: Perfect! Send me what you've got by tomorrow.
Yeah. Like that, but all in Spanish.
The subtitles were... interesting. At times I felt like I was reading Engrish. I saw orca spelled "orka," "orca," and "Orca." Often all within the same scene. Keiko was referred to as a girl at first, which amused me. I figured it was just a story decision for one reason or another, since most people can't tell the difference between male and female orcas just by looking at them. But ten minutes later, he was referred to as a "he." And then he was back to "she"... and then back to "he" within the same sentence. Keiko apparently has some big gender issues. I can kinda give them the benefit of the doubt there because I speak virtually no Spanish (aside from "permanecer sentados, por favor" and "por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas") so I don't know if they were using a pronoun that was not specific to gender... but you'd think they'd at least be consistent in the translation. But you'd be wrong. They later said that Keiko was a father to lots of calves, so apparently they meant male, and apparently their translator suffered from short-term memory loss.
I'm not going to touch their Spectacular Special Effects with a ten-foot pole. :P
For a movie about Keiko, he certainly doesn't do much. He kinda sits in the tank and looks pretty while everything goes on around him. In fact, I think the most he ever actively participates in the plot is doing the show. However, I am not one to complain about watching footage of Keiko. He was Teh Pretty.
And of course, the movie doesn't miss a chance to berate us for our polluting tendencies. It's a nice thought, but it comes off as cheesy. The aliens get all condescending on the Earthlings for junking up the planet, and threaten to take Keiko away if we screw it up anymore. The best part, though, is Alien Kid "feeding" trash around the park into the tiki-themed garbage cans and telling it "bon apetite!" Repeatedly.
I may later go through and do a play-by-play on this one, because I totally had a
zeropointsnark-like commentary going on as I watched. Long story short: Keiko En Peligro is fun... if you want a movie that you can TOTALLY MSTie."...but Disneyland didn't have KEIKO!"
10 wishes | rub the lamp
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